Croatian General Calls on Serb War Refugees to Return

Croatian general Ante Gotovina, who was cleared last week of committing war crimes, called on Serb war refugees to return to Croatia, in an interview with a Serbian daily Monday.

"I would tell them to return to Croatia. They are Croatian citizens, it is their country as much as it is mine," Gotovina said when asked by the Kurir Serbian daily what his message was for Croatian Serbs who fled the country during the 1991-95 war that pitted Zagreb against Belgrade-backed rebel Serbs.

"Those who have their homes here and want to return should do so," Gotovina told a Kurir journalist who reached him by phone in his Zagreb home.

A U.N. court on Friday cleared on appeal Gotovina and another general Mladen Markac of committing war crimes against Croatian Serbs.

They were initially convicted of being responsible for murders, cruel treatment and inhumane acts against Croatian Serbs during Operation Storm in August 1995 which stamped out the last pocket of Serb resistance and effectively ended the war in Croatia.

U.N. prosecutors said 324 people were killed in the offensive and 90,000 forcibly displaced.

Asked if he would personally press for the prosecution of Croatians who committed war crimes, Gotovina urged people to look to the future.

"It was war, it is in the past, let us turn to the future. What happened in the past, belongs in the past and there are institutions whose job it is" to prosecute suspects, he insisted.

The generals' acquittal provoked anger across Serbia, with extreme right-wing groups, leftwing liberals and human rights activists all slamming the verdict for ignoring Serb victims.